India’s Dev Benegal Wins NAFF Project Prize at Korea’s PiFan

SEOUL – Indian director Dev Benegal’s pitch for a dark comedy “Dead End” was named as the best project at the Network of Asian Fantastic Films .

The story of a man who is declared as dead by a shady government department and has to take extreme measures to prove that he is alive, was written by Benegal and Sarat Rao and is to be produced by Satish Kaushik Entertainment and Benegal’s August Entertainment. The Bucheon Award is worth $15,000.

Other winners announced Wednesday evening included “The Cartridge and the Man Who Copied Himself” a dark body-swap fantasy by Taiwan’s Bruce Hwang Chen, which claimed both the NAFF Award and the new Media Vision Award.

Korean projects claimed three prizes – the Cheong Song White Porcelain Award went to “N.S.I.” by Lee Ju Hean; the Wavelab Award, which will help with audio post production went to Jo Jin-Kyu’s “The Shadow Zone;” while The Color Award, which will subsidize the cost of a DI was awarded to Ian Bae’s “A Man for 100 Days.” The Moneff Award providing editing support went to “In the Name of Love” by China’s Cong Cai.

The NAFF project market is a successful sidebar event to the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Pifan), operating for 18 years now in a suburb of Seoul. It hosted 27 local and Asian projects, welcoming 259 executives to 449 formal one-on-one pitch meetings.